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Agile Vocalist is a podcast about sound and the performing arts with a California connection. Explore artist stories and learn music history, get inspired, and learn about how sound and the arts impact our lives. Created and hosted by Rachel Medanic, Agile Vocalist is for the curious, the creative, and for anyone willing to explore the connection between sound and our shared humanity. Agile Vocalist episodes, liner notes, and additional visual materials also available at: https://www.agilevo ...
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Combining the Performing Arts with Tachíria Flamenco
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43:26
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Send us a Text Message. Mx. Flamenco is a dancer, actor, singer and comedienne who shares her unique blend of performance with the San Francisco Bay and beyond. In this conversation we explore the sounds of flamenco as a dance form and how she brings it together in her ongoing series of world premiere collaborations with artists of other genres. Ta…
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Part 2 with San Francisco Bay Area Salsa & Latin Musician, Edgardo Cambón
40:24
40:24
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40:24
Send us a Text Message. Part two with Edgardo covers the power of music that's connected to dance forms, origins of Edgardo's band, Candela, and his eye-opening process of how he used to create original music as he was waiting tables in a restaurant. If you find yourself in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2024, check out Edgardo's newest on Thursday …
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Salsa and Latin Music Powerhouse, a Conversation with Edgardo Cambón
43:26
43:26
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43:26
Send us a Text Message. Edgardo Cambón is a Uruguayan-born singer who fell in love with percussion after setting aside guitar and getting early exposure singing as a young boy. As a teacher band leader and Latin music business man now, Edgardo continues to perform. His musical career has taken him throughout South America, Europe, and Africa. Since…
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The Language that Connects Us With Poet Ali
40:57
40:57
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40:57
Send us a Text Message. Poet Ali is a poet, compelling performer, lyricist, performance artist and inspirational speaker whose performances and presentations focus on connection with ourselves and our environments. As a soulosopher and entertainer, he is a inspires us to use our gifts to catalyze self-discovery and well-being. As an Iranian-America…
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Learn How to Unleash Your Agile Vocalist, The Podcast Turns Three!
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4:48
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Send us a Text Message. 21 Guests and 27 episodes later, Agile Vocalist has hit its three year mark (which is kind of amazing for a podcast). Thank you to my season 3 guests: Cellista, Alphabet Rockers, Rob Jensen and Warren Trezevant, Sonic Runway creators, sound healer & instructor, Melissa Felsenstein, taiko artist Janet Koike, and carillonist, …
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The Mysterious Carillon with Simone Browne
32:26
32:26
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32:26
Send us a Text Message. The sounds of bells in towers is a common experience to many around the world. But the reality is there is an entire profession devoted to carillons-- actual lever and pedal instruments making the sounds of bells you hear. Carillons exist all over the U.S., Europe and other parts and are commonly heard from the top of towers…
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Taiko Beat of Collaboration with Janet Koike
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41:50
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41:50
Send us a Text Message. Janet Koike is the Founder of Rhythmix Cultural Works in Alameda, California. She is also the Artistic Director of Maze Daiko ensemble. In this episode she shares her journey from textile fashion design to tap dance to playing taiko, the Japanese drum. Janet's experiences bringing remind us all of the alluring power of sound…
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Sound Healing with Melissa Felsenstein
1:01:23
1:01:23
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Send us a Text Message. Have you ever pondered what it might be like to experience a moment of tranquility amidst the chaos of daily life? Melissa Felsenstein, the founder of Innersounds Meditation, reveals how sound healing can be your haven. Melissa used this therapeutic technique to conquer her personal battles with anxiety and depression, but s…
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Visualizing Sound with Rob Jensen and Warren Trezevant, Creators of Sonic Runway
30:25
30:25
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30:25
Send us a Text Message. What does it take to synchronize light and sound? Co-creators Rob Jensen and Warren Trezevant, talk about their work creating Sonic Runway, an art installation conceived at Burning Man. Sonic Runway immerses the spectator in colorful synchronized visuals that animate the speed of sound. Hear the story behind their meticulous…
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Send us a Text Message. What did you do this summer? What's left still to experience? Better yet, what did you hear? July is a liminal space and time to dive into the creative. This summer soundscape is an annual season pause so you can listen to July. Traveling through California, Oregon, and landing in Washington at performing arts family camp, y…
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Hip Hop for Change with Grammy-Winning Alphabet Rockers
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47:31
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Send us a Text Message. In 2007, Tommy Soulati Shepard and Kaitlin McGaw formed Alphabet Rockers to make music that makes change. This episode discusses how they met, the wide variety of their performing backgrounds and how they, 3 professional children artists and a host of other artist collaborators use hip hop to put a child's experience at the …
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Taking Cello to New Vibrations with Cellista
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30:31
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Send us a Text Message. Exposed to cello at an early age, Cellista broke away from her classical cellist training to follow her calling to create and collaborate with other art forms including beatboxers, spoken word artists, dancers, and musicians. Her work continues to reflect on and engage the cultural circumstances she experiences around her an…
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Send us a Text Message. Season 2 has concluded. This episode is how you can (wherever you are!) share in the podcast festivities (listening, sending me an email). Listen as I review the guests we had over the past year, sing you a little song, and recognize some of the amazing people who've supported me in this journey. Season 3 is coming! Listen a…
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From the Mississippi Delta to the Board of the Grammys with Chelle Jacques
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35:42
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Send us a Text Message. Chelle Jacques is a career musician, bandleader, educator and more. In this episode she shares the story of her recently launched Daughters of the Delta Project featuring the musical contributions from the women artists of Louisiana we so rarely hear about. She also shares how she got involved with The Recording Academy, bes…
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Send us a Text Message. I talked to Frida the parrot as she was on exhibit as part of a larger an immersive art experience. This Agile Vocalist episode dives into animal sounds and share a one-of-a-kind recording of my interactions with a parrot I went to “interview.” Our interactions proved some of the most varied from any she’d had with other hum…
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From California to Tiny Desk Entry with Folk Musician, Moira Smiley
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50:35
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Send us a Text Message. Folk and classical musician, composer, arranger, instrumentalist, and vocalist Moira Smiley has a broad repertoire of mystical and passionate music that pulls your heart strings. And if you sing, you may find yourself learning something she's written. Her songs, arrangements, artistic collaborations, body percussion sequence…
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Reimaging Opera at Burning Man with Marisa Winter
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38:36
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Send us a Text Message. What’s it like to lead the edge of change in the arts? Vocalist, Marisa Winter (Diva Marisa) has done that with her career and she remains driven to offer new audiences music in context. As a classically trained opera singer and Burning Man performer, she shares the impact Burning Man has made on experiential art everywhere.…
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The Touch of Music with Dr. Pianist, Makiko Hirata
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32:46
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32:46
Send us a Text Message. Dr. Makiko Hirata (“Dr. Pianist") is on a mission to promote the power of music to heal and unite. In this episode, she talks about reconciling her training in classical piano with being a woman in music as well as how musicians have a role to play as first responders in times of climate catastrophe. She has shifted her care…
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Send us a Text Message. Betsy Blakeslee’s work has connected refugees with the healing power of music for two decades. She directed expressive arts programs for refugee youth in Bosnia and Croatia during the wars of the 1990s. Since 2016, her Expressive Arts Refuge team and Moira Smiley have been running similar programs at refugee camps in France,…
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Agile Vocalist Epilogue, Season 1: Bathrooms, Cars & the Future
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6:51
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Send us a Text Message. In celebration of Agile Vocalist's 1-year anniversary, this epilogue takes you back through an unexpected trend that emerged with many of my guests about creativity. The theme was this: people are often most creative and get their sound practice and ideas... in the bathroom, specifically the shower. Cars were also a theme as…
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Disc Jockeying to Engage with Justin James
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40:25
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Send us a Text Message. What is it like to be a modern-day disc jockey(DJ) artist? How, with sound alone, does a DJ engage people they’ve never met to celebrate, raise the energy, hop onto a dance floor, and come together for a shared experience? I talk engagement and the craft of DJing, including the craft of Dance Floor Architecture in this inter…
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British Angel for Gospel Music with Opal Louis Nations
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41:56
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Send us a Text Message. Growing up in England, Opal Louis Nations was passionate about soul music and followed his calling to perform it amid England’s soul and blues scene. In this interview Opal shares the roots of the painful history of gospel music and its evolution through decades of the 20th century to the 1960s. The episode includes rare mus…
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Music as Accompaniment to Life, Work & Feelings with Vidya Srinivasan (Part 2 of a 2-part episode)
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25:06
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25:06
Send us a Text Message. This continuing conversation with Indian classical music vocalist, Vidya Srinivasan gives us insights into how she balances a multi-dimensional life with music and how music is a tool as frequently used in her work life as it is in her personal life as a creator and performer. Vidya Srinivasan was introduced to the world of …
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An Indian Classical Voice for Modern Times with Vidya Srinivasan (part 1 of a 2-part episode)
22:55
22:55
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Send us a Text Message. Working in technology, it’s rare to find someone whose passion is as deeply embedded in the arts as it is in the sciences. With very early life training in Carnatic music, Vidya Srinivasan’s career journey is filled with insights about how she uses a music as a tool for creativity, problem-solving, and as a means for process…
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Interfaith Gospel for Life and Health with Mary Ford
20:18
20:18
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20:18
Send us a Text Message. Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir singer Mary Ford talks about her career with the group and her life roots with the art form. Mary chose the gospel at a crossroads after nearly losing her life on her honeymoon. The power of music on and inside the body as well as the unifying spirit it brings to audiences and performers is fe…
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Making Music Synchronously via the Internet with Brian Walker
28:05
28:05
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28:05
Send us a Text Message. In this conversation with audio engineer, Brian Walker, we talk through Brian's work learning the JackTrip technology. Use of JackTrip dramatically reduces audio latency while preserving original audio quality. The technology allows musicians to make music together synchronously via the internet and can be used for either re…
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Virtual Music for People Who Are Dying with Jennifer Hollis (part 2 of a 2-part episode)
18:29
18:29
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18:29
Send us a Text Message. In this continuing conversation about Jennifer Hollis's music-thanatology work (part 2 of a 2-part episode), she shares her perspective on the future of music-thanatology and Harps of Comfort, an organization she formed that has adapted with virtual music to the circumstances of Covid-19. Jennifer Hollis is a writer, music-t…
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An Art to Comfort the Dying with Jennifer Hollis (part 1 of 2-part episode)
20:29
20:29
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Send us a Text Message. There is a little-known branch of the performing arts that brings harp and vocal music to the bed side of the dying. It’s called music-thanatology. In this part 1 episode with music-thanatologist Jennifer Hollis, she shares what music-thanatology is and the amazing discoveries she made about the field researching her book ab…
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How the Blues Liberated Women with Pamela Rose (Part 2 of a 2-part episode)
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27:56
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27:56
Send us a Text Message. Part 2 of my 2-part conversation with San Francisco Bay Area vocalist, Pamela Rose. Originally published: March 2021 as a celebration of International Women's Day. Pamela Rose is a jazz and blues vocalist who has thrilled local and international audiences for decades with her swinging, soulful style. Rose has performed at cl…
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The Screaming Fields, Re-examining the Function of Screaming as an Emotional Sound
6:07
6:07
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6:07
Send us a Text Message. Agile Vocalist's inaugural compact audio memoir episode. This episode is a personal reflection on and for our world navigating Covid-19 and the treacherous realities of 2020. This compact audio memoir was created as an expression of gratitude for all the people who powered us through 2020: healthcare workers, essential worke…
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Women Who Created the Blues with Pamela Rose (part 1 of a 2-part episode)
19:38
19:38
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19:38
Send us a Text Message. San Francisco jazz and blues vocalist, Pamela Rose has thrilled local and international audiences for decades with her swinging, soulful style. Rose has performed at clubs and jazz and blues festivals throughout the United States, Germany, and Denmark. She has six recordings to her name. In recent years, Rose has toured nati…
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Beatboxing a Path to the Sound Arts with Joshua Silverstein
41:11
41:11
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Send us a Text Message. Joshua is an award-winning actor, comic, writer, beatboxer, and educator whose path into the arts was punctuated by overcoming a speech impediment. The episode also includes his live improv soundscape performance as a meditation for 2021. Joshua’s various performances have received admiration from Norman Lear to Prince. He h…
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